Council Approves $15,000 Toward Library Renovation

The City Council on Tuesday approved the appropriation of $15,000 from the city’s Library Gift and Memorial Reserves to address a potential funding gap related to the planned remodel of the children's’ areas of the .

According to city staff, the funds were necessary in order to begin construction on the project, which has been in the works for two years.

Fundraising for the project began in August, 2010, when the Library Board of Trustees set a fundraising goal of $40,000. That number was later revised upward to $60,000 following the development of a remodelling plan, paid for with a “Family Place Library Grant” awarded to the library in late 2010.



In addition new programs and multimedia, the state grant was used to for improvements to the furniture in the library's children's room and help to better equip the library to support early-learning interactions between young children, parents and caregivers. The current remodelling plan is designed to meet these needs.

Since the revision and its approval by the Library Board of Trustees, contributions and fundraising efforts have brought in just over $50,000, a number $10,000 short of the expected cost of the remodel.

The $15,000 appropriation approved by the City Council on Tuesday is intended to fill that gap, as well as provide $5,000 “as a contingency for unanticipated costs,” according to staff reports.

Funds raised for the project thus far have come in the form of a generous $20,000 donation  from the . That donation was supplemented by another $1,000 from Interact, a Rotary organization for high school age students. It’s due to these generous grants that the Trustees have decided to call the new area the “Rotary Children’s Library”



In addition, organizers raised funds at a pizza party and silent auction fundraising event held on June 25, 2011. For that event, businesses from across Sierra Madre donated items for the silent auction portion.



Another donation of $6,000 from the Mary Tumilty Endowment Fund brought the total amount raised as of July 20, 2011 to $50,748.

Before the $15,000 appropriation, the Library Gift and Memorial Reserves account balance sat at $102,000, according to a city staff report filed by Library Services Director Toni Buckner.